Journal of Neuroscience
June 9, 2010
Cameron H Good, Carl R. Lupica
Ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine (DA) neurons play a pivotal role in processing reward-related information and are involved in drug addiction and mental illness in humans. Information is conveyed to the VTA in large part by glutamatergic afferents that arise in various brain nuclei, including the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN). Using a unique rat brain slice preparation, we found that PPN...
Journal of Neurochemistry
February 2010
Ni Fan, Hongwei Yang, Jian Zhang et al.
Chronic use of marijuana impairs synaptic plasticity and cognitive function. However, the molecular mechanisms by which marijuana alters long-term synaptic plasticity are largely unknown. Here, we show that repeated in vivo exposures to Delta9-THC for 7 consecutive days significantly impaired hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) of excitatory glutamatergic synaptic transmission. The...
State University of New York Press eBooks
November 18, 2009
George W. Shields
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Hippocampus
August 2009
Tiziana Rubino, Natalia Realini, Daniela Braida et al.
Marijuana and hashish are the illicit drugs most frequently used by human adolescents. Given the continued neurodevelopment throughout adolescence, adolescents may be more vulnerable than adults to certain neural consequences of heavy marijuana use. This study aimed to assess whether an experimental model of adolescent chronic exposure to Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), may induce lasting...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
August 1, 2009
Glen L Xiong, P Murali Doraiswamy
Meditation practices have various health benefits including the possibility of preserving cognition and preventing dementia. While the mechanisms remain investigational, studies show that meditation may affect multiple pathways that could play a role in brain aging and mental fitness. For example, meditation may reduce stress-induced cortisol secretion and this could have neuroprotective...
Neurotoxicity Research
May 2009
Tiziana Rubino, Natalia Realini, Daniela Braida et al.
We recently demonstrated that Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) chronic administration in female adolescent rats induces alterations in the emotional circuit ending in depressive-like behavior in adulthood. Since cognitive dysfunction is a major component of depression, we assessed in these animals at adulthood different forms of memory. Adolescent female rats were treated with THC or its...
European Journal of Neuroscience
April 27, 2009
Marcello Massimini, Giulio Tononi, R Huber
Sleep slow waves are the main phenomenon underlying NREM sleep. They are homeostatically regulated, they are thought to be linked to learning and plasticity processes and, at the same time, they are associated with marked changes in cortical information processing. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and high-density (hd) EEG we can measure slow waves, induce and measure plastic...
Annual Review of Physiology
February 12, 2009
Boris D. Heifets, P. Castillo
Endocannabinoids (eCBs) are key activity-dependent signals regulating synaptic transmission throughout the CNS. Accordingly, eCBs are involved in neural functions ranging from feeding homeostasis to cognition. There is great interest in understanding how exogenous (e.g. cannabis) and endogenous cannabinoids affect behavior. As behavioral adaptations are widely considered to rely on changes in...
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
2008
Richard J. Davidson, Antoine Lutz
282 citations
The term neuroplasticity is used to describe the brain changes that occur in response to experience. This article examines the changes in the brain that occur during different styles of meditation practice.
Synapse
July 1, 2006
Juan Liu, Toshihito Suzuki, Tatsunori Seki et al.
Dysfunctional maturation of neural networks, particularly hippocampus-prefrontal networks, may be of particular interest in determining the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Phencyclidine (PCP)-induced symptoms in humans appear to offer a more complete model of schizophrenia than do amphetamine-induced symptoms. This study investigated the effects of intermittent i.p. injections of PCP (7.5...